'Inside Out 2' becomes first movie of 2024 to cross $1B mark

Pixar movie "Inside Out 2" is crushing the box office as the highest-grossing movie of the year.

The film crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office in less than three weeks of release, reaching that level in the fastest time of any animated film in history, Walt Disney Co DIS.N said on Sunday. The movie is also the only one this year to cross the $1 billion mark.

The original "Inside Out" opened with about $90 million in its first weekend in the summer of 2015, and topped out at $858.8 million globally.

The original animated 2015 comedy “Inside Out” took audiences into young girl Riley’s complex mind and showcased a bevy of colorful emotions trying to keep it together for the kid’s sake, crafting an uncannily relatable movie in the process.

The first "Inside Out" ended with Riley turning 12, and the sequel catches up with her (now voiced by Kensington Tallman) – as well as her core emotions Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale) and Disgust (Liza Lapira) – a year later.

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Directed by Kelsey Mann, "Inside Out 2" carries on with a now 13-year-old Riley starting puberty, which comes with a whole bunch of new emotions: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Envy (Ayo Ebebiri).

Hawke, the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, previously opened up to USA TODAY about how she related to her character.

"In my own life, I have some anxiety. It's not debilitating but like a normal amount. I created a little character for myself when I'm kind of in that zone, so I better can express to the people around me that I know that I'm being silly, too," she said.

Contributing: Kim Willis, Brian Truitt, USA TODAY; Maria Ponnezhath, Reuters